


Let's Make a Deal

by Winterling42



Series: I am also a We [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Fjord has a piece of piping in his hands one minute. The next...a cheese danish. Jester absconds with the papers! But she's never really gone.





	Let's Make a Deal

**Author's Note:**

> title from Steffan Argus' Ship in a Bottle! It ended up on my Fjord/Jester playlist. :)

Jester wiggled impatiently in her seat, craning her neck to see if the ticket person was here yet. The train was stopped at the border between Germany and Czechia, waiting for  _ everyone _ to get their passports checked. It was going to take  _ forever _ . But just when Jester was sure she was going to vibrate out of her skin, she was suddenly...somewhere else. 

Well, first she looked down and was holding a corner piece of piping. She blinked down at it for a moment, turning the greasy bit of metal over and over in her hands. When she looked up, there was a strong sense of vertigo--like she was lifting her head twice in one second--and deja vu. She certainly hadn’t ever seen the hallway before, everything dull gray and red and made of the same metal as the bit she was holding. But the place felt familiar, too, like a second home. She could feel/hear the subtle shift of vast water nearby, knew somehow that she was on the second deck of the  _ Tide’s Breath _ . 

“Ship,” she said out loud, listening to the echoes. “I’m on the ocean!” She turned to smile at the man next to her. 

...

Fjord stared down at the cheese danish he was holding instead of a vital piece of ballast piping. He flipped it over a couple of times, like the pipe would be underneath it or something. And then someone standing uncomfortably close to his shoulder coughed. Pointedly. Fjord looked up from a surprisingly plush chair into the face of what had to be a cop--despite the fact that Fjord didn’t recognize the uniform.

“Reisepass, bitte.”

“Uhhh...” Fjord stared blankly. 

“Reisepass, Mädchen.” And when that failed to get what he wanted, the officer sighed. “Tschechisch? Russisch?” Finally, in heavily accented English, “Passport?”

“Oh!” Fjord raised a hand, and the officer sighed with relief. Fjord managed to smile and nod and  _ not freak out _ because he  _ didn’t have a passport _ . What was-- _ how _ was this happening? He turned to the bag in the seat next to him, and when he glanced out the window...someone else looked back through his reflection. A young woman with pale skin and hair so blue it had to be dyed was staring back at him. For a second she looked as startled as he was, but after a second she smiled. Fjord continued to stare as she stuck her tongue out, then pushed her nose up with her finger, then put her hands above her head and wiggled them. When she laughed, Fjord could hear her as clearly as if she was sitting right next to him. But when the cop coughed again, and glared down at Fjord, it was clear he didn’t see anything wrong with reflections that didn’t follow any damn laws of physics. 

And when he looked over again, she was in the chair next to him, real as anything. Despite himself Fjord jumped about a foot in the air and made a noise that was definitely  _ not _ a squeak. 

“Haben Sie deinen Reisepass oder nicht?” the cop tapped his handheld scanner loudly against the plastic pockets on his belt. “Mädchen?” 

“Do you need help?” the woman next to him whispered, quite loudly. 

“I have...no idea what’s happening right now.” Fjord wouldn’t have admitted it, except for how loud his heartbeat sounded in his ears, how desperate he was to  _ get out of here _ ...

“Well, my papers are right here, officer!” The blue-haired stranger pulled a bundle of things our of her dress pocket and handed them over with a guileless smile that didn’t fool Fjord for an instant. 

And Fjord whipped around to see if the cop would notice that he was being handed something from  _ the wrong chair _ , but there was no reaction at all. The man just scanned a little red booklet with his scanner, grunted something, and handed everything back...to Fjord. “Have a good visit,” he said, in his accented English, and walked past them. 

Fjord whipped back around, and yes she was still there, still smiling at him with her...very sharp teeth. She had her elbows on the armrest between them and her chin in her hands, watching him intently. “Hiiii,” she said with the tiniest of waves. “My name’s Jester. What’s yours?” 

Fjord blew out a long breath and, after a moment, held out his hand to shake. Jester took it, delighted, as he said, “Name’s Fjord. Don’t suppose you’re a figment of my imagination?”

“Only if you’re one of mine,” Jester said instantly. “Where  _ are  _ you, by the way? I mean, like, this is the ocean, right? Why’s everything so  _ boring  _ colored?” 

And just like that, they were standing back in the hallway on the  _ Tide’s Breath _ , still holding hands. Fjord let hers drop and pretended not to notice her frown, stooping to pick up the piece of piping he’d been inspecting a moment ago. “It’s not exactly a cruise ship,” he said, poking his foot through the toolbox to find a wrench. “I’m workin’ my way across.” 

“ _ Cool _ ,” Jester said, reaching up to try and hang from the network of pipes that snaked across the ceiling. She let go when Fjord coughed and Looked at her, with another sheepish smile. He wondered if her face got tired looking like that all the time. “I’m also traveling but like, not on the water.”

Fjord looked around the otherwise empty train compartment, looked at the mostly-demolished tray of danishes. “Yeah, I could tell.” But he couldn’t be angry, or even really annoyed, when Jester pulled a big book out of her violently pink backpack and flipped to an empty page. She cradled the book in one arm and pulled a pencil out of her pocket with her free hand, eyeing the walls of the ship, holding one hand up to Fjord and squinting. 

“What’re you doin’?” he meant to sound stern, but ended up laughing when Jester had to blow a stubborn strand of hair out of her face before smiling at him again. 

“Drawing! I’ve been having these  _ really cool  _ visions of like, other people? And places like this one! I’m going to draw  _ all _ of it!” And putting word to deed, she sat down in the bulwark of a door and started sketching. Fjord waiting a second for her to say something else, but the otherwise talkative Jester seemed utterly absorbed in her project. So he shrugged and turned back to his own work, feeling her eyes occasionally on the back of his neck. 

**Author's Note:**

> Just so everyone knows, the chronology of these pieces is Wacky and Does Not Follow the order they are posted it.


End file.
